Say what you will about Lars Ulrich, he gives one hell of an interview. In a new sit-down with Maxim, Metallica‘s outspoken drummer dishes on porn stars, Hulk Hogan, Napster, and what he really thinks about the metal community.

Ulrich reminisced about the “insane” period when the band was recording ‘The Black Album’ in Los Angeles, recounting just how closely tied the rock and porn communities were:

It was a pretty crazy convergence: music, alcohol, drugs, debauchery, porn. At that time the porn world and the music world were kind of like bedmates — if you were mixing with anyone other than your own group, it was the porn world. We had a lot of fun, and I have good memories from that time. I’m glad I lived it … and I’m glad I don’t have to live it again.

Asked about Hulk Hogan’s recent claim that Ulrich once asked him to play bass for Metallica, Ulrich didn’t deny it but can’t seem to confirm it either.

“I have — this is scary — the best memory of any of us, and I still have to file that one under ‘hazy,’” he said, adding, “Listen, you know me — I’m up for anything! Don’t take my inability to remember as a negative thing. That sounds sensational.”

When Maxim asked if Ulrich had any regrets about the way Metallica famously (or infamously, depending on your viewpoint) spoke out against file-sharing company Napster lo these many years ago, the drummer replied, “We were kind of blindsided. It started off as a backyard scrap — it was personal. It was a control issue, then all of a sudden it became like a crusade. There was a little bit of ‘Huh? Wait a minute, shouldn’t Sting be doing this?’”

And speaking of regrets, the magazine also asked Ulrich if he wished he could go back and omit some things from the 2004 Metallica documentary, ‘Some Kind of Monster,’ eliciting this exceedingly honest response:

I’m definitely guilty of poking sometimes. I’m Danish, and Danish people sometimes like to stick their finger in somebody else’s shoulder and push them a bit. I sometimes think that the metal community is just so f-cking serious and up its own ass. Once in a while it needs a little poke, and I don’t mind being that guy. Nobody else seems to do it.

Given that attitude, it’s probably a good thing he isn’t offended by people who don’t like him. “Some­times I read, ‘Oh, Lars Ulrich, what an asshole,’ or, ‘Lars Ulrich can’t play drums.’ I laugh at all of that,” he said.

“I think it’s really funny when someone sits there [in chat forums] and says something that he’s typed with his d-ck, or some 12-year-old who hasn’t figured out how to jerk off yet is sitting there typing insults about somebody he’s never met,” he adds. “The whole thing’s hilarious.”

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